Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church
by Vladimir Lossky
It is our intention, in the following essay, to study certain aspects of
eastern spirituality in relation to the fundamental themes of the Orthodox
dogmatic tradition. In the present work, therefore, the term 'mystical theology'
denotes no more than a spirituality which expresses a doctrinal attitude.
In a certain sense all theology is mystical, inasmuch as it shows forth the
divine mystery: the data of revelation. On the other hand, mysticism is
frequently opposed to theology as a realm inaccessible to understanding, as an
unutterable mystery, a hidden depth, to be lived rather than known; yielding
itself to a specific experience which surpasses our faculties of understanding
rather than to any perception of sense or of intelligence. If we adopted this
latter conception unreservedly, resolutely opposing mysticism to theology, we
should be led in the last resort to the thesis of Bergson who distinguishes, in
his Deux Sources, the 'static religion' of the Churches from the 'dynamic
religion' of the mystics; the former social and conservative in character, the
latter personal and creative.
To what extent was Bergson justified in stating this opposition? This is a
difficult question, all the more so since the two terms which Bergson opposes on
the religious plane are rooted in the two poles of his philosophical vision of
the universenature and the elan vital. Quite apart from this attitude of
Bergson, however, one frequently hears expressed the view which would see in
mysticism a realm reserved for the few, an exception to the common rule, a
privilege vouchsafed to a few souls who enjoy direct experience of the truth,
others, meanwhile, having to rest content with a more or less blind submission
to dogmas imposed from without, as to a coercive authority. This opposition is
sometimes carried to great lengths, especially if the historical reality be
forced into a preconceived pattern. Thus the mystics are set up against the
theologians, the contemplatives against the prelates, the saints against the
Church. It will suffice to recall many a passage of Harnack, Paul Sabatier's Life
of St. Francis, and other works, most frequently by protestant historians.
The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism
and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma
affirmed by the Church. The following words spoken a century ago by a great
Orthodox theologian, the Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, express this attitude
perfectly: 'none of the mysteries of the most secret wisdom of God ought to
appear alien or altogether transcendent to us, but in all humility we must apply
our spirit to the contemplation of divine things'.[1] To put it in another way,
we must live the dogma expressing a revealed truth, which appears to us as an
unfathomable mystery, in such a fashion that instead of assimilating the mystery
to our mode of understanding, we should, on the contrary, look for a profound
change, an inner transformation of spirit, enabling us to experience it
mystically. Far from being mutually opposed, theology and mysticism support and
complete each other. One is impossible without the other. If the mystical
experience is a personal working out of the content of the common faith,
theology is an expression, for the profit of all, of that which can be
experienced by everyone. Outside the truth kept by the whole Church personal
experience would be deprived of all certainty, of all objectivity. It would be a
mingling of truth and of falsehood, of reality and of illusion: 'mysticism' in
the bad sense of the word. On the other hand, the teaching of the Church would
have no hold on souls if it did not in some degree express an inner experience
of truth, granted in different measure to each one of the faithful. There is,
therefore, no Christian mysticism without theology; but, above all, there is no
theology without mysticism. It is not by chance that the tradition of the
Eastern Church has reserved the name of 'theologian' peculiarly for three sacred
writers of whom the first is St. John, most 'mystical' of the four Evangelists;
the second St. Gregory Nazianzen, writer of contemplative poetry; and the third
St. Symeon, called 'the New Theologian', the singer of union with God. Mysticism
is accordingly treated in the present work as the perfecting and crown of all
theology: as theology par excellence.
Unlike gnosticism,[2] in which knowledge for its own sake constitutes the aim
of the gnostic, Christian theology is always in the last resort a means: a unity
of knowledge subserving an end which transcends all knowledge. This ultimate end
is union with God or deification, the theosis of the Greek Fathers. Thus,
we are finally led to a conclusion which may seem paradoxical enough: that
Christian theory should have an eminently practical significance; and that the
more mystical it is, the more directly it aspires to the supreme end of union
with God. All the development of the dogmatic battles which the Church has waged
down the centuries appears to us, if we regard it from the purely spiritual
standpoint, as dominated by the constant preoccupation which the Church has had
to safeguard, at each moment of her history, for all Christians, the possibility
of attaining to the fullness of the mystical union. So the Church struggled against the gnostics
in defence of this same idea of deification as the universal end: 'God became
man that men might become gods'. She affirmed, against the Arians, the dogma of
the consubstantial Trinity; for it is the Word, the Logos, who opens to us the
way to union with the Godhead; and if the incarnate Word has not the same
substance with the Father, if He be not truly God, our deification is
impossible. The Church condemned the Nestorians that she might overthrow the
middle wall of partition, whereby, in the person of the Christ himself, they
would have separated God from man. She rose up against the Apollinarians and
Monophysites to show that, since the fullness of true human nature has been
assumed by the Word, it is our whole humanity that must enter into union with
God. She warred with the Monothelites because, apart from the union of the two
wills, divine and human, there could be no attaining to deification'God created
man by his will alone, but He cannot save him without the co-operation of the
human will.' The Church emerged triumphant from the iconoclastic controversy,
affirming the possibility of the expression through a material medium of the
divine realitiessymbol and pledge of our sanctification. The main
preoccupation, the issue at stake, in the questions which successively arise
respecting the Holy Spirit, grace and the Church herself this last the dogmatic
question of our own timeis always the possibility the manner or the means of
our union with God,, All the history of Christian
dogma unfolds itself about this mystical centre, guarded by different weapons
against its many and diverse assailants in the course of successive ages.
The theological doctrines which have been elaborated in the course of these
struggles can be treated in the most direct relation to the vital endthat of
union with God to the attainment of which they are subservient. Thus they appear
as the foundations of Christian spirituality. It is this that we shall
understand in speaking of 'mystical theology'; not mysticism properly so-called,
the personal experiences of different masters of the spiritual life. Such
experiences, for that matter, more often than not remain inaccessible to us:
even though they may find verbal expression. What, in reality, can one say of
the mystical experience of St. Paul: 'I knew a man in Christ above fourteen
years ago (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I
cannot tell: God knoweth); such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew
such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth);
how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it
is not lawful for a man to utter'.[3] To venture to pass any judgement upon the
nature of this experience it would be necessary to understand it more fully than
did St. Paul, who avows his ignorance: 'I cannot tell: God knoweth.' We
deliberately leave on one side all question of mystical psychology. Nor is it
theological doctrines as such that we propose to set forth in the present work,
but only such elements of theology as are indispensable for the understanding of
a spirituality: the dogmas which constitute the foundation of mysticism. Here,
then, is the first definition and limitation of subject, which is the mystical
theology of the Eastern Church.
The second limitation circumscribes our subject, so to say, in space. It is
the Christian East, or, more precisely, the Eastern Orthodox Church, which will
form the field of our studies in mystical theology. We must recognize that this
limitation is somewhat artificial. In reality, since the cleavage between East
and West only dates from the middle of the eleventh century, all that is prior
to this date constitutes a common and indivisible treasure for both parts of a
divided Christendom. The Orthodox Church would not be what it is if it had not
had St. Cyprian, St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great. No more could the
Roman Catholic Church do without St. Athanasius, St. Basil or St. Cyril of
Alexandria. Thus, when one would speak of the mystical theology of the East or
of the West, one takes one's stand within one of the two traditions which
remained, down to a certain moment, two local traditions within the one Church,
witnessing to a single Christian truth; but which subsequently part, the one
from the other, and give rise to two different dogmatic attitudes,
irreconcilable on several points. Can we judge the two traditions by taking our
stand on neutral ground equally foreign to the one as to the other? That would
be to judge Christianity from a non-Christian standpoint: in other words, to
refuse in advance to understand anything whatever about the object of study. For
objectivity in no wise consists in taking one's stand outside an object but, on
the contrary, in considering one's object in itself and by itself. There are
fields in which what is commonly styled 'objectivity' is only indifference, and
where indifference means incomprehension. In the present state of dogmatic
difference between East and West it is essential, if one wishes to study the
mystical theology of the Eastern Church, to choose between two possible
standpoints. Either, to place oneself on western dogmatic ground and to examine
the eastern tradition across that of the Westthat is, by way of criticismor
else to present that tradition in the light of the dogmatic attitude of the
Eastern Church. This latter course is for us the only possible one.
It will, perhaps, be objected that the dogmatic dissension between East and
West only arose by chance, that it has not been of decisive importance, that it
was rather a question of two different historical spheres which must sooner or
later have separated in order that each might follow its own path; and, finally,
that the dogmatic dispute was no more than a pretext for the breaking asunder
once and for all of an ecclesiastical unity which had in fact long ceased to be
a reality.
Such assertions, which are heard very frequently in the East as in the West,
are the outcome of a purely secular mentality and of the widespread habit of
treating Church history according to methods which exclude the religious nature
of the Church. For the 'historian of the Church' the religious factor disappears
and finds itself displaced by others; such, for instance, as the play of
political or social interests, the part played by racial or cultural conditions,
considered as determining factors in the life of the Church. We think ourselves
shrewder, more up to date, in invoking these factors as the true guiding forces
of ecclesiastical history. While recognizing their importance, a Christian
historian can scarcely resign himself to regarding them otherwise than as
accidental to the essential nature of the Church. He cannot cease to see in the
Church an autonomous body, subject to a different law than that of the
determinism of this world. If we consider the dogmatic question of the
procession of the Holy Spirit, which divided East and West, we cannot treat it
as a fortuitous phenomenon in the history of the Church. From the religious
point of view it is the sole issue of importance in the chain of events which
terminated in the separation. Conditioned, as it may well have been, by various
factors, this dogmatic choice wasfor the one party as for the othera spiritual
commitment a conscious taking of sides in a matter of faith.
If we are often led to minimize the importance of the dogmatic question which
determined all the subsequent development of the two traditions, this is by
reason of a certain insensitivity towards dogmawhich is considered as something
external and abstract. It is said that it is spirituality which matters. The
dogmatic difference is of no consequence. Yet spirituality and dogma, mysticism
and theology, are inseparably linked in the life of the Church. As regards the
Eastern Church, we have already remarked that she makes no sharp distinction
between theology and mysticism, between the realm of the common faith and that
of personal experience. Thus, if we would speak of mystical theology in the
eastern tradition we cannot do otherwise than consider it within the dogmatic
setting of the Orthodox Church.
Before coming to grips with our subject it is necessary to say a few words
about the Orthodox Church, little known down to the present day in the West.
Father Congar's book Divided Christendom, though very remark able in many
respects, remains, despite all his striving after objectivity, subject, in those
pages which he devotes to the Orthodox Church, to certain preconceived notions.
'Where the West,' he says, 'on the basis at once developed and narrow of
Augustinian ideology, claimed for the Church independence in life and
organization, and thus laid down the lines of a very definite ecclesiology, the
East settled down in practice, and to some extent in theory, to a principle of
unity which was political, non-religious, and not truly universal.[4] To Father
Congar, as to the majority of Catholic and Protestant writers who have expressed
themselves on this subject, Orthodoxy presents itself under the form of a
federation of national churches, having as its basis a political principlethe
state-church. One can venture upon such generalizations as these only by
ignoring both the canonical groundwork and the history of the Eastern Church.
The view which would base the unity of a local church on a political, racial or
cultural principle is considered by the Orthodox Church as a heresy, specially
known by the name of philetism.[5] It is the ecclesiastical
territory, the area sanctified by more or less ancient Christian tradition which
forms the basis of a metropolitan province, administered by an archbishop or
metropolitan, with the bishops from every diocese coming together from time to
time in synod. If metropolitan provinces are grouped together to form local
churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop who often bears the title of
patriarch, it is still the community of local tradition and of historical
destiny (as well as convenience in calling together a council from many
provinces), which determines the formation of these large circles of
jurisdiction, the territories of which do not necessarily correspond to the
political boundaries of a state.[6] The Patriarch of Constantinople enjoys a
certain primacy of honour, arbitrating from time to time in disputes, but
without exercising a jurisdiction over the whole body of the oecumenical.
Church. The local churches of the East had more or less the same attitude
towards the apostolic patriarchate of Romefirst see of the Church before the
separation, and symbol of her unity. Orthodoxy recognizes no visible head of the
Church. The unity of the Church expresses itself through the communion of the
heads of local churches among themselves, by the agreement of all the churches
in regard to a local councilwhich thus acquires a universal import; finally, in
exceptional cases, it may manifest itself through a general council.[7] The
catholicity of the Church, far from being the privilege of any one see or
specific centre, is realized rather in the richness and multiplicity of the
local traditions which bear witness unanimously to a single Truth: to that which
is preserved always, everywhere and by all. Since the Church is catholic in all
her parts, each one of her membersnot only the clergy but also each laymanis
called to confess and to defend the truth of tradition; opposing even the
bishops should they fall into heresy. A Christian who has received the gift of
the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of the Holy Chrism must have a full awareness
of his faith: he is always responsible for the Church. Hence the restless and
sometimes agitated character of the ecclesiastical life of Byzantium, of Russia
and of other countries in the Orthodox world. This, however, is the price paid
for a religious vitality, an intensity of spiritual life which penetrates the
whole mass of believers, united in the awareness that they form a single body
with the hierarchy of the Church. From this, too, comes the unconquerable energy
which enables Orthodoxy to go through all trials, all cataclysms and upheavals,
adapting itself continually to the new historical reality and showing itself
stronger than outward circumstances. The persecutions of the faithful in Russia,
the systematic fury of which has not been able to destroy the Church, are the
best witness to a power which is not of this world.
The Orthodox Church, though commonly referred to as Eastern, considers
herself none the less the universal Church; and this is true in the sense that
she is not limited by any particular type of culture, by the legacy of any one
civilization (Hellenistic or otherwise), or by strictly eastern cultural forms.
Moreover, eastern can mean so many things: from the cultural point of
view the East is less homogeneous than the West. What have Hellenism and Russian
culture in common, notwithstanding the Byzantine origins of Christianity in
Russia? Orthodoxy has been the leaven in too many different cultures to be
itself considered a cultural form of eastern Christianity. The forms are
different: the faith is one. The Orthodox Church has never confronted national
cultures with another which could be regarded as specifically Orthodox. It is
for this reason that her missionary work has been able to expand so
prodigiously: witness the conversion of Russia to Christianity during the tenth
and eleventh centuries, and, at a later date, the preaching of the Gospel across
the whole of Asia. Towards the end of the eighteenth century Orthodox missions
reached the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, passed thence to North America,
creating new dioceses of the Russian Church beyond the confines of Russia,
spreading to China and Japan.[8] The anthropological and cultural variations
which one encounters from Greece to the remotest parts of Asia, and from Egypt
to the Arctic, do not destroy the homogeneous character of this kinship of
spirituality, very different from that of the Christian West.
There is a great richness of forms of the spiritual life to be found within
the bounds of Orthodoxy, but monasticism remains the most classical of all.
Unlike western monasticism, however, that of the East does not include a,
multiplicity of different orders. This fact is explained by the conception of
the monastic life, the aim of which can only be union with God in a complete
renunciation of the life of this present world. If the secular clergy (married
priests and deacons), or confraternities of laymen may occupy themselves with
social work, or devote themselves to other outward activities, it is otherwise
with the monks. The latter take the habit above all in order to apply themselves
to prayer, to the interior life, in cloister or hermitage. Between a monastery
of the common life and the solitude of an anchorite who carries on the
traditions of the Desert Fathers there are many intermediate types of monastic
institution. One could say broadly that eastern monasticism was exclusively
contemplative, if the distinction between the two ways, active and
contemplative, had in the East the same meaning as in the West. In fact, for an
eastern monk the two ways are inseparable. The one cannot be exercised without
the other, for the ascetic rule and the school of interior prayer receive the
name of spiritual activity. If the monks occupy themselves from time to time
with physical labours, it is above all with an ascetic end in view: the sooner
to overcome their rebel nature, as well as to avoid idleness, enemy of the
spiritual life. To attain to union with God, in the measure in which it is
realizable here on earth, requires continual effort, or, more precisely, an
unceasing vigil that the integrity of the inward man, 'the union of heart and
spirit' (to use an expression of Orthodox asceticism), withstand all the
assaults of the enemy: every irrational movement of our fallen nature. Human
nature must undergo a change; it must be more and more transfigured by grace in
the way of sanctification, which has a range which is not only spiritual but
also bodilyand hence cosmic. The spiritual work of a monk living in community
or a hermit withdrawn from the world retains all its worth for the entire
universe even though it remain hidden from the sight of all. This is why
monastic institutions have always enjoyed great veneration in every country of
the Orthodox world.
The part played by the great centres of spirituality was very considerable
not only in ecclesiastical life but also in the realm of culture and politics.
The monasteries of Mount Sinai and of Studion, near Constantinople, the monastic
republic of Mount Athos, bringing together religious of all nations (there were
Latin monks there prior to the schism), other great centres beyond the bounds of
the Empire such as the monastery of Tirnovo, in Bulgaria, and the great lavras
of RussiaPetcheri at Kiev and the Holy Trinity near Moscowhave all been
strongholds of Orthodoxy, schools of the spiritual life, whose religious and
moral influence was of the first importance in the moulding of peoples newly
converted to Christianity.[9] But if the monastic ideal had so great an
influence upon souls, it was , nevertheless, not the only type of the spiritual
life which the Church offered to the faithful. The way of union with God may be
pursued outside the cloister, amid all the circumstances of human life. The
outward forms may change, the monasteries may disappear, as in our own day they
disappeared for a time in Russia, but the spiritual life goes on with the same
intensity, finding new modes of expression.
Eastern hagiography, which is extremely rich, shows beside the holy monks
many examples of spiritual perfection acquired by simple laymen and married
people living in the world. It knows also strange and unwonted paths to
sanctification: that, for instance, of the 'fools in Christ', committing
extravagant acts that their spiritual gifts might remain hidden from the eyes of
those about them under the hideous aspect of madness; or, rather, that they
might be freed from the ties of this world in their most intimate and most
spiritually troublesome expression, that of our social 'ego'.[10] Union with God
sometimes manifests itself through charismatic gifts as, for example, in that of
spiritual direction exercised by the starets or elder. These latter are
most frequently monks who, having passed many years of their life in prayer and
secluded from all contact with the world, towards the end of their life throw
open to all comers the door of their cell. They possess the gift of being able
to penetrate to the unfathomable depths of the human conscience, of revealing
sins and inner difficulties which normally remain unknown to us, of raising up
overburdened souls, and of directing men not only in their spiritual course but
also in all the vicissitudes of their life in the world .[11]
The individual experiences of the greatest mystics of the Orthodox Church
more often than not remain unknown to us. Apart from a few rare exceptions the
spiritual literature of the Christian East possesses scarcely any
autobiographical account dealing with the interior life, such as those of Angela
of Foligno and Henry Suso, or the Histoire d'une ame of St. Teresa of
Lisieux. The way of mystical union is nearly always a secret between God and the
soul concerned, which is never confided to others unless, it may be, to a
confessor or to a few disciples. What is published abroad is the fruit of this
union: wisdom, understanding of the divine mysteries, expressing itself in
theological or moral teaching or in advice for the edification of one's
brethren. As to the inward and personal aspect of the mystical experience, it
remains hidden from the eyes of all. It must be recognized that it was only at a
comparatively late period, towards the thirteenth century in fact, that mystical
individualism made its appearance in western literature. St. Bernard speaks
directly of his personal experience only very seldomon but a single occasion in
the Sermons on the Song of Songsand then with a sort of reluctance, after the
example of St. Paul. It was necessary that a certain cleavage should occur
between personal experience and the common faith, between the life of the
individual and the life of the Church, that spirituality and dogma, mysticism
and theology, could become two distinct spheres; and that souls unable to find
adequate nourishment in the theological summae should turn to search
greedily in the accounts of individual mystical experience in order to
reinvigorate themselves in an atmosphere of spirituality. Mystical individualism
has remained alien to the spirituality of the Eastern Church.
Father Congar is right when he says: 'We have become different men. We
have the same God but before him we are different men, unable to agree as to the
nature of our relationship with him."[12] But in order to estimate
accurately this spiritual divergency it would be necessary to examine it in its
most perfect manifestations: in the different types of sanctity in East and West
since the schism. We should then be able to give an account of the close link
which always exists between the dogma which the Church confesses and the
spiritual fruit which it bears. For the inner experience of the Christian
develops within the circle delineated by the teaching of the Church: within the
dogmatic framework which moulds his person. If even now a political doctrine
professed by the members of a party can so fashion their mentality as to produce
a type of man distinguishable from other men by certain moral or psychical
marks, a fortiori religious dogma succeeds in transforming the very souls
of those who confess it. They are men different from other men, from those who
have been formed by another dogmatic conception. It is never possible to
understand a spirituality if one does not take into account the dogma in which
it is rooted. We must accept facts as they are, and not seek to explain the
difference between eastern and western spirituality on racial or cultural
grounds when a greater issue, a dogmatic issue, is at stake. Neither may we say
that the questions of the procession of the Holy Spirit or of the nature of
grace have no great importance in the scheme of Christian doctrine, which
remains more or less identical among Roman Catholics and among Orthodox. In
dogmas so fundamental as these it is this 'more or less' which is important, for
it imparts a different emphasis to all doctrine, presents it in another light;
in other words, gives place to another spirituality.
We do not wish to embark on a 'comparative theology'; still less to renew
confessional disputes. We confine ourselves here to stating the fact of a
dogmatic dissimilarity between the Christian East and the Christian West, before
examining certain of the elements of the theology which forms the foundation of
eastern spirituality. It will be for the reader to judge in what measure these
theological aspects of Orthodox mysticism can be of use for the comprehension of
a spirituality which is alien to western Christianity. If while remaining loyal
to our respective dogmatic standpoints we could succeed in getting to know each
other, above all in those points in which we differ, this would undoubtedly be a
surer way towards unity than that which would leave differences on one side.
For, in the words of Karl Barth, 'the union of the Churches is not made, but we
discover it'.[13]
Endnotes
1. Sermons and Addresses of the Metropolitan Philaret, Moscow, 1844,
Part II, p. 87. (In Russian.)
2. See the article by M. H.-Ch. Puech: 'Ou en est le probleme du gnosticisme?',
Revue de l'Universite de Bruxelles, 1934, Nos. 2 and
3.
3. II Cor. xii, 2-4.
4. M. J. Congar, O.P., Chretiens desunis. Principes d'un 'oecumenisme'
catholique, Paris, 1937, p. 15. English translation by M. A. Bousfield, Divided
Christendom, London, 1939, p. 13
5. Synod of Constantinople, 1872. v. Mansi, Coll. concil., vol. 45,
417-546. See also the article by M. Zyzykine: 'L'Eglise orthodoxe et la nation,'
Irenikon, 1936, pp. 265-77.
6. Thus the Patriarchate of Moscow includes the dioceses of N. America and
that of Tokyo beyond the frontiers of Russia. By contrast, the Catholicate of
Georgia, though within the bounds of the U.S.S.R., does not form part of the
Russian Church. The territories of the Patriarchates of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem are politically dependent on many different
powers.
7. The name cumenical Council given in the East to the first seven
general synods corresponds to a reality of a purely historical character. These
are the councils of the 'oecumenical' territories, that is to say of the
Byzantine Empire which extended (theoretically, at least) throughout the
Christian world. In later epochs the Orthodox Church has known general councils
which, without bearing the title of 'oecumenical' were neither smaller nor less
important.
8. See S. Bolshakoff, The Foreign Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church,
London, 1943.
9. There is some useful information about eastern monasticism in the little
book by Fr. N. F. Robinson, S.S.J.E., entitled Monasticism in the Orthodox
Churches (London, 1916). For Mount Athos, see Hasluck: Athos and its
Monasteries (London, 1924) and F. Spunda, Der heilige Berg Athos (Leipzig,
1928). For the monastic life in Russia, see the following studies of Igor
Smolitsch, 'Studien zum Klosterwesen Russlands', in Kyrios, No. 2 (1937),
pp. 95-1 12, and No. 1 (1939), pp. 29-38, and, above
all, the same author's 'Das altrussische Monchtum' (XI-XVI Jhr.), Wurzburg,
1940, in Das ostliche Christentum, XI, and Russischer Monchtum, Wurzburg,
1953.
10. See on this subject E. Benz, 'Heilige Narrheit', in Kyrios, 938, Nos.
I and 2, pp. 1-55; Mme Behr-Sigel, 'Les Fous pour le Christ et la saintete
laique dans l'ancienne Russie', in Irenikon, Vol. XV (1939), PP. 554-65;
Gamayoun, 'Etudes sur la spiritualite populaire russe: les fous pour le Christ',
in Russie et Chretienti, 1938-9, 1, PP. 57-77.
11. Smolitsch, Leben und Lehre der Starzen, Vienna, 1936.
12. Congar, op. cit., p. 47.
13. 'The Church and the churches', Oecumenica, III, No. 2,
July, 1936.
From The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church
(London: James Clarke & Co., LTD, 1957), pp. 7-22. This classic work has
been reprinted by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press and is widely available from any
good Orthodox bookstore.
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